John Locke
Empiricists 1690-1770
Main Center: Britain Key Names: Locke, Berkeley, and Hume
Key Problem: Given that sense experience is our only source of knowledge, how far can knowledge extend, and what are the inevitable limitations?
Possible Solution: We can see that science is the best route to truth, and philosophy shows us the limitations of clims about perception, knowledge, truth, laws, causation, the future, morality and politics, when they are built up purely from basic sense experience.
Summary: Be scientific
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Rene Descartes
Rationalists 1640-1800
Main Center: Northern Europe Key Names: Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant
Key Problem: Given that reason is our only reliable source of knowledge, what can we deduce about reality from pure thought, and how far can we trust our sense experience?
Possible Solution: Reason tells us to mistrust our senses, but ideas and truth exist within the mind, and by careful thought we can build a picture of reality, using reason, math, and intuition. Science has its place within a larger spiritual and intellectual world.
Summary: Follow reason in everything
You've been living in a dream world.
You think that's air you're breathing?
3 Minute Philosophy
8 Bit Philosophy
Constructing the world of dreams
Immanuel Kant
Rationalists 1640-1800
Main Center: Northern Europe Key Names: Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant
Key Problem: Given that reason is our only reliable source of knowledge, what can we deduce about reality from pure thought, and how far can we trust our sense experience?
Possible Solution: Reason tells us to mistrust our senses, but ideas and truth exist within the mind, and by careful thought we can build a picture of reality, using reason, math, and intuition. Science has its place within a larger spiritual and intellectual world.
Summary: Follow reason in everything
Determinism
Good?
3 Minutes...
Georg Hegel
Idealists 1800-1900
Main Center: Germany Key Names: Hegel
Key Problem: If we take a commitment to rationalism seriously, what can we deduce about the true nature and purposes of existence?
Possible Solution: If we follow our reason far enough, we can see all ideas (and even history itself) converging on a single ideal and a single vision of the Truth, which exists in a spiritual world.
Summary: Great ideas are reality.
Karl Marx
Materialists 1600-1900
Main Center: Northern Europe Key Names: Hobbes, Marx, Darwin
Key Problem: Given that the only thing existing in our world is physical matter, what can we deduce about our identity, and how individuals and communities should live their lives?
Possible Solution: If we start with our sense, we realize that nothing is sure except the physical world, so we must assume that nothing else exists, either inside our own heads, or in any greater world of the spirit. The lwas of science are the laws of human life.
Summary: Stick to what is physical
